Lost and Found

{April 15, 2012}

Hey everyone,

Thanks for the emails. It was nice to hear from everyone. I want to
see the Hunger Games so bad. I see little advertisements for it and it
kills me. Everyone says it's way good. I'll have to check it out when
I get home. Sounds like jury duty was fun. Haha. I'm still laughing
about that. Elder Clark Anderson's letter was fun to read. Gotta love
those South American miracles. I can't believe how that worked out.
Way cool. The twins are running for student council again? Sweet. Good
luck to them. Those are some good times.

Those are some good questions from Dad. Good things to think about.
Here's my answers.
1. Things that have changed from since I was a greenie: planning is
meaningful, not painful. I can speak and understand Korean (on a good
day). I think quoting PMG and church videos is funny. I learned that I
wasn't as humble as I thought I was. My work ethic has probably
increased too.
2. During the next 7-8 months I want to think more positively and then
work efficiently to make my mission more productive. That's one thing
I've learned and still learning this transfer especially. I also don't
want to fear the day I go home, but look at it as a deadline of when I
need to do the things I want to do and be the person that I want to
be.
3. I haven't really had an experience that made me think "oh this is
why I came to Korea" but in one of Pres. Uchtdorf's talks he begins by
talking about our callings and sometimes we're called to certain
callings or positions to learn that God lives and that this is the
restored church. I can't remember exactly how he said it but I think
that's one reason why I was called to Korea. And there are some things
that I think I have learned faster or in more depth because of
missionary work in Korea than I would have learned anywhere else.
4. After that letter about goals, I've thought a little bit more about
what I want to do. I probably could have and should have thought about
it more (luckily there's still time for that) but I try to make my
goals meaningful. I've kind of realized that I'm just going to turn
into a bump on a log if I don't make goals. And then go at it and work
for those goals. Easier said than done. But isn't that life?
5. I haven't heard much about North Korea. Just what you said. They
fired a missile and it failed. That's about all I know. Our president
hasn't said anything about it. We'll see what happens.
6. I hadn't heard about Mitt Romney. That's cool. I think it will have
an impact on the church in Korea, and probably the whole world. My
last Korean companion was saying if he becomes president more people
will probably join the church becuase one of the most powerful men in
the world is a member and they respect America. I don't know for sure.
Once again, we'll see.

Hopefully that was sufficient. That was a good follow up. Well my week
was pretty good. It was eventful. The most exciting part of our week
was probably losing our phone. I don't suggest it. It's not a good
situation. We were out contacting and my companion had the phone and
put it in the pocket of his overcoat, which had a hole in it. When we
got home and started planning we realized that a hole in a pocket plus
a phone in a pocket equals zero phones in a pocket. With a remainder
of one hole. So we rushed over to the train station by our house and
used a pay phone to call our leaders. Long story short, we were out
pretty late looking for our phone and ended up not finding it. So we
tried calling it again in the morning and someone had found it and
took it to a phone store. So another long story short, we got our
phone and all was well. That was fun. But amongst all that losing we
found two new investigators. They're sweet. And pretty golden.
Hopefully some good things come out of that. However, amongst all that
finding, we lost both of our baptismal dates. Yeah. Rough stuff. But
we found out some more concerns about our college student Sis. Park,
which was good. She doesn't open up much so it was good to see what
she was thinking. So we're taking a step back, having her really read
and pray about the Book of Mormon and we'll set up another date when
she feels ready. We definately learned that you can't drag people to
baptism and that some people just need some time. So stay tuned for
that.

Sorry this email is super long. Like I said, kind of a lot of things
happened. But it was a good week. Every week is good. Korea is getting
way pretty right now. It's looking like spring and the cherry blossoms
are coming out. I'm excited. Hopefully you guys aren't having too much
fun out in the sunshine and beautiful weather. Even in the Promised
Land, you have to have trials every once in a while. Have a good day.
Talk to you next week.

Love, Elder Dorius

Conference is the Best

{April 8, 2012}

Hey everyone,

Well once again there's no emails from you guys. Didn't you hear in
Conference that you're supposed to write more letters to people who
are away from home? I don't think that meant you should completely
stop emailing. Those things are nice too. But anyways. I guess I'll
just start on my week.

Conference was awesome! Seriously. They always outdo (is that right?)
themselves every year. So many good messages and things to think about
and apply. I loved it. I'm still working on the Saturday Morning
session. I had to do a baptismal interview that morning but the
investigator was late and so we were just going to stay at that church
and watch it there, but due to a series technical difficulties, we
missed the first session. By the time we got things up and running it
was over so we just abandoned that ship and met up with the rest of
our zone and watched the other sessions. But my companion has the
audio on his translator so we're still working on that morning
session. Lucky us. Conference isn't quite over. One thing I learned
wasn't from a specific talk, but from Conference as a whole. They
always talk about how you can get an answer to any question from
Conference, but I didn't really realize how true that is. A little
while ago we got a committment from our APs to write down some
questions and listen for the answer at Conference. So I did. It was
the first time in my life I did that and I don't know why I never did
it before. It was so cool. Some questions I wasn't sure how they were
going to be answered, but then boom! They were. I highly suggest it.
It's an awesome way to recieve revelation and guidence for our
personal problems and lives.

So that was the highlight of the week. As for other things that
happend, we had our temple trip, I went on splits with the zone
leaders, and I got to do pass off with the new American greenie in my
district. Oh man. Greenies are so funny. I had forgotten what it was
like to be in Korea for only a week. It's cool to see how perspectives
of the country and missionary work change over time. My favorite part
was probably him thinking the piece of garlic he ate at dinner was the
spiciest thing in the world. Haha. Good times.

Our investigators are doing well. We invited one of them to dinner
with us and the bishop's family. I need to tell you their names so you
have a better feel for who they are and can distinguish between the
two. Unfortunately they have the same family name and I don't want to
confuse you with the rest of their names. Welcome to Korea. Unless you
want me to. They're both Sis. Park I guess you could say. We had
dinner with the college student Sis. Park, not the part-member wife
Sis. Park. Anyway. She's still set to be baptized on the 22nd. They
both are. We're finally going to meet the part-member wife Sis. Park
this week and get the lessons going so she can get baptized then. Oh I
referred that girl to the missionaries in her area. She is actually
outside my zone so I can't meet her. The last thing I heard was they
were going to try to visit her. I need to see how it went.

Well that's about all I have I think. Oh yeah, Happy Easter! Hopefully
the Easter Bunny wasn't too busy and was able to make it to the house
this year. Enjoy the holidays. Hope to hear from you soon. Preferably
in an email. And preferably today. I figured out we won't pick up
letters until next month so just keep that in mind if you just stick
to snail mail. Have a good one!

Love, Elder Dorius








Called to Serve


Oh I see how it is now. It's not that you're heeding the words of the
prophets and sticking to writing letters. Mom got called for Jury
Duty! Hahaha. Ok that is way way funny. I think. Have fun with that.
Haha. AH I want to see the Hunger Games!! I'm glad it was good. I'm
slightly early because our library right next to our house was open
today and working so we got it quick. And we got Frosted Flakes. Not
bad. We haven't had Easter yet. Because of Conference, the church here
will celebrate Easter next Sunday. So I'll let you know what we do.
Probably just a nice Sacrament meeting and a good lunch after church.
But we'll see.

Glad to hear you guys are still living. And somewhat technologically
inclined. Keep it up. Good luck with Jury Duty, Mom. Bwahaha. Can't
wait to hear about that.

Love (still), Elder Dorius

Spring is in the air

{April 2, 2012}

Hey everyone,

Thanks for that referral. I'll see what I can do about meeting her. It
might be kind of hard but I'll talk to the APs or something and see
what they say. And I'll keep my eyes open for those fan holders. I'll
have to take a trip to a market or something. I haven't seen things
like that for awhile. Either of those shorts will be fine. Maybe just
send both if you can. That way I can mix and match. Ha. I'm way
excited for conference. It sounds really good. As always. And Kadin,
they do it a week later because of the translation. They translate it,
put it on a DVD and send it to all the wards so we watch it a week
later. It should be good.

Transfers went well. I stayed and my companion went to my first area,
Tae Baek. He wasn't too excited. He's going to be out there for awhile
because he'll be the branch president after his companion transfers. I
found out my recent convert out there hasn't been coming out to church
lately so I told my companion to look him up and tell him to come to
church again. Hopefully he does. My new companion is American. He's
from California. He's one transfer younger than me so he has quite a
lot of experience and drive. It's awesome. We've also been trying out
The Secret and positive thinking. So far it's been pretty successful.
We got some cereal on sale and we bought a dozen 1.5 litter bottles of
juice for 12 bucks from using it. Boo ya. Actually the juice was just
a miracle and tender mercy of the Lord, but the cereal was from The
Secret. Now we just need to use it to find new investigators. But
we're working on that. And for some reason, every day of this transfer
so far we've seen something super random or funny. It's kind of
reminded me that I'm still a normal human being and so are the people
we meet, so it's ok to have moments like that and to just laugh. I
think it's going to be a really good transfer.

Our investigators are doing well. We're still good for those two to
get baptized on the 22nd. We still haven't been able to meet the
part-member family yet but our ward mission leader is going to get us
set up and start teaching them. But everything should still be set.
There's a baptism in our district this weekend, so I get to do another
baptismal interview on Saturday. Those are always exciting. And it's
way cool to meet other investigators and see how excited they are to
be baptized and how happy they are from accepting the gospel. It's the
best.

It's finally beginning to feel like spring. The nights are a little
chilly but the days are usually pretty nice. I haven't worn my big
coat for a couple weeks now and I love it. I also think my area is
going to be super pretty in the spring. There's lots of trees around
the city and there's lots of farms and rice fields around the
outskirts. It's going to be sweet.

Well that's about all I have. I'll keep my eyes out for those good
conference talks. Which probably means I won't be sleeping through it.
Hopefully you guys have a good week. Talk to you later.

Love, Elder Dorius


P.S. My claim to fame 
I just looked at the conference summaries on the church website.
The new presiding bishop came to our mission last transfer. I shook
his hand. Twice. And the new relief society president is the wife of
the old Seoul West Mission president. Just thought I'd let you know

Sorry I'm late

{March 26, 2012}

Hey everyone,

Sorry this letter is a little late. Our library was having a system error and it was taking forever at our post office so now I'm finally able to email. But our P-day ends pretty soon so I don't have much time to write. Sorry. But I have a couple things I need first. By chance could you look through my stuff and try to find my long basket ball shorts? I kind of want those. Hopefully you haven't sent my card yet. You can send them with that. Also can you check my debit card account? I have a little scratch on my card and for some reason can't check the account at an ATM but I can still use it. So just make sure I still have money in there and such and I'll try to check it sometime. Then I also wanted to remind you of General Conference this weekend. We watch it a week later so keep an eye out for the good ones and give me a heads up so I know which ones to not sleep through. Ha.

So this week was pretty good. We finally got a new ward mission leader. There hasn't been one since I've been here so it's been good to have the help. And boy he has helped. His little brother is good friends with the part member family we've been trying to meet so he went over and visited them. Well he talked to the nonmember wife about being baptized and such and she said she wanted to be baptized and then asked how. So he said "you just need to meet the missionaries and take the lessons. Do you want to be baptized on April 22?" Boom. Baptismal date. Before she even became a progressing investigator. I don't know why that didn't happen with us. But that's ok. It still worked out. Then on Sunday he met with us and our other progressing investigator and kind of gave her a pop quiz on everything we've talked about. Which is everything. We finished all the lessons a couple weeks ago. Anyway. It was kind of intense. But he talked about the other part member family who is getting baptized and he said "we would really like for you guys to be baptized together. Will you prepare to be baptized on April 22?" Boom. Another baptismal date. So if all goes well we'll have two baptisms on that day. I'm stoked. This would pretty much make my whole life. I've been praying for this for a long time. So regardless of everything else that happened this week, it was a good week.

We get our transfer calls tonight. We think my companion is leaving and I'll stay. That's the most likely but we'll see in a few hours. I'm a little nervous. I really hope I stay so I can finally be a part of a baptism of someone who I met and helped teach and such. But I'm pretty sure I'm safe. I'll have to let you know how it goes next week. Well that's pretty much all I have to report on. I'll try to hurry and send some pictures too. Have a good week.

Love, Elder Dorius

Pictures!

1. This was our p day a couple weeks ago. We went hiking. These are my zone leaders and my sisters.

2. Me.

3. Me again. Being king of the world. Or something.

4. Some of our zone.

 

It's a little different than Zions but still way sweet.

 

Happy White Day

{March 19, 2012}

Hey everyone,

 

Thanks for the emails. They were perfect lengths today. Haha. Yeah don't put me in classes that Malea is taking. Ever. Classes like basic math, basic English, and basic Korean are more up my alley. I'm done for when I have to go to school again. Mom, I think it's worth a shot of getting that girl's address. The temple is in my zone. It's the zone leaders area so it's kind of close. I wish she could be my investigator but I guess we can help out my zone leaders too. I don't think I need anything. Just my memory card back. Man I wish I could skype. That sounds way fun. But email/snail mail is fun too. Maybe someday.

 

Well this week was crazy. March 14 is White Day in Korea. On Valentine's Day the girls give gifts to guys and so to make things fair they have White Day, where the guys give gifts to girls. So my companion wanted to visit all the sisters in the ward and give them cookies. But then he decided that we'll just give cookies for the whole family of every family in our ward. That's a lot of cookies. And then he wanted them to be in heart shapes. Guess who got to make them all. Me. I have never been so frustrated with chocolate chip cookies in my life. It kind of turned into too big of a project for us to do how we wanted so we were both pretty frustrated. It was a good week to learn patience. So because we planned to pretty much focus all of our time and energy on our members, I didn't think this week was going to be a week of miracles and huge success. But it kind of was. We just started an English class a couple weeks ago and we haven't seen any progress from it. But this week we got a random call from someone looking for our church to come to English class. He was the only person so we were able to focus on just him. As we were getting to know each other, he grabbed the Book of Mormon sitting on the table and asked if it was the Bible. Then for the rest of the time we talked about the Book of Mormon and a little bit about the Restoration. It was one of the best English class lessons ever. So we invited him to church and lo and behold he came! He has a lot of really good potential. The only problem is he goes to the army on April 2. So that's kind of a problem, but we'll see how it works out. We're meeting him tomorrow. Our othe progressing investigator is doing pretty good. We finished up all the lessons and such and she doesn't have any problems with the commandments. She came with us to the baptismal service the other elders had in our district and she seemed to like it. We invited her to be baptized this Sunday, but she said that's too quick. So we tried pushing it back to next month and she said she'll think about it. So we almost kind of have a baptismal date. I think she'll get baptized eventually. She just needs time. So despite all the frustration and dang cookies, we were still blessed.

 

Every transfer, the missionaries going home give their "farewell" talk at the major meeting of the transfer. Well my good buddy, Elder Reyes, is going home this transfer and for his farewell talk, President gave him permission to play his guitar. It was really cool. He talked about how he's been writing songs for 10 years and this was the first time he wrote a song with "Jesus Christ" in it. So he talked about using our talents during our mission and using them to help the work move forward. It was sweet. He also wrote a song about going home, which was kind of ironic because it was right after we recieved "anti-trunky" training. Haha. But it was still really good. I want to try to get a copy of it from him. Anyway. That was fun. 

 

The weather is getting better. Spring is definately coming, but it's still a little chilly. I haven't had to wear my big coat for a couple days which is nice. I'm sure in a couple more weeks it's going to be awesome. I'm pretty excited. Well that's pretty much it. I'm glad you enjoyed the pictures. Sorry there's a million from our badmitton adventure and all those videos. You might have to do some editing and revising. Anyways. Talk to you later. Have a good week.

 

Love, Elder Dorius

Dang it....

{March 11, 2012}

Hey everyone,

I really do love all the emails. They're really fun to read, but it
just takes a long time and it seems like every time I'm short on time
is when Dad "threatens" Kadin and Kylie to write me so it takes even
longer. Haha. We're going to Bukhan San today for a zone P-day
activity. It's a famous mountain in Korea and it's right in our zone.
How lucky. I'm excited. We actually went just on Saturday with our
young men and it was really fun. I forgot that hiking was one of my
hobbies. I'm super jealous of you guys with your spring break. Dang
it. That's the best. And it sounds like the weather is warming up and
getting perfect. It's freezing here. Again. Yesterday was SO cold and
windy. We at least didn't have tornadoes like Grandpa and Grandma, but
it was close. I heard yesterday was -5 C and today is suposed to be
-12 C. What a great day to go hiking.

Well this week was pretty tough. I have all the sympathy in the world
for Grandpa and Grandma and they're couple "dissed" appointments. We
say "punked" here, but same thing. We had several potential
appointments lined up on almost every day of last week so we were
pretty excited and thought we were going to pick up some new
investigators, but not one met. It was rough. Especially since we felt
like we were working just as hard, if not harder, than the week
before, but still didn't see much success. It was pretty frustrating.
But one kid ended up calling us and saying he had to cancel because
his grandma was really sick and in the hospital so he couldn't meet. I
guess that's a pretty good reason. So that was a little hopeful. Then
we met our most progressing investigator on Sunday at church and she
accepted a soft baptismal committment. We haven't given her a date
yet, but we're hoping for the 25th. That's our goal. Then our
part-member couple sneeked into sacrament meeting just as the opening
hymn was finishing so it was good to have them in church and see them
again. So even though we had a rough week, I kind of learned that
everything on your mission can totally change for the better in just
one day.

Sorry I don't have much more to report on from last week. This week
should be better. And hopefully I'll have a bit more time to email.
I'm doing a baptismal interview on Friday. With a Mongolian. Woot!
Let's go gift of tongues! It should be good. Enjoy your spring break.
Talk to you next week.

Love, Elder Dorius

Please Meet!

{March 5, 2012}

Hey everyone,

 

Haha oh man, Danielle's pictures are funny. Mostly Jesse. Haha. Your new house looks nice. It's weird to see carpet though. I'm just used to the traditional hardwood floors here. I want to come visit sometime and party in Texas. You should have it all scoped out by the time I'm home. Congratulations to Kadin and Kylie on SUPAF. Did they give out money when I did it or was I just not good enough? I'm jealous. That's more money than I've made in my whole musical career. It must not be the path for me. So are you guys able to just call up Grandpa and Grandma whenever? It sounds like they're having fun on their mission. I want to serve a couple's mission now. It sounds like the life. I also got a good laugh at Dad's story about McKay and his friend. That's hilarious. McKay's so funny. I feel the same sometimes. Actually most of the time. It's tough to keep up with things like that.

 

Well this week has been good. We had our temple day on Tuesday, which is always nice. Then I went on exchanges with the other elders in our district and we had dinner with their recent convert. He's way funny and such a cool kid. Then on Thursday we went on exchanges with our zone leaders. It was intense but really good. The elder I was with stayed in my area and we just went to town. We talked to tons of people and saw a lot of good things happen. I'm pretty sure miracles just follow zone leaders, especially when you go on exchanges. We need to go on exchanges with them everyday or something. We found a lot of potential investigators and were slammed with appointments this weekend. Unfortunately, like most potentials, they punked. So that was a little disappointing, but we at least have a good pool of potentials. We did pick up two new investigators though. One was a kid we met on the street and he brought his friend with him. He doesn't believe in God or the Bible. He read it front to back because he thought it was a fun story. When we met him, he wanted us to prove resurrection scientifically and with examples. Yeah. That was hard. So maybe not the most potential right now, but we'll see. He said he'll read the Book of Mormon and he's willing to meet with us more. Our district is doing well. The elders have a baptismal date and one of the sisters' investigator accepted a soft committment. So things are doing pretty good. We have a few more potentials coming up this week so hopefully we can pick up some of them and keep our teaching pool going.

 

So this week I bought some new jeans. They're Korean style which means they're pretty slim. Way slim. They're basically skinny jeans. I was a little worried about that because I couldn't try them on, but they were a good deal so I went with it. Well I tried them on and my companion just starts laughing at me. Which is understandable. They emphasize the longness and skinniness of my legs. But as we were going out my companion was just going off on how he needs to excercise more and stuff. I think it was good motivation for him. Haha. It was pretty funny though. He said I can pull off the Korean style. Hopefully it still works in America. Haha.

 

Anyway. That was pretty much my week. I sent off a package today for you guys so let me know when you get it. I sent it by air mail so it should get there in a couple weeks. I think you'll like it. I threw in my memory card too so if you could go through that and send it back that would be good. Have a good week and I'll talk to you next week.

 

Love, Elder Dorius